EUREGHA News

On 7th of February, the 4-year SUNFRAIL Project was concluded by its Final Conference in Bologna, Emilia-Romagna Region, Italy. The final conference gathered regional health authorities, local and regional stakeholders, policy makers and SUNFRAIL project partners to present and discuss the SUNFRAIL project’s result, opportunities, replicability and outcomes.

The SUNFRAIL Project have successfully succeeded in developing a SUNFRAIL Model for frailty, a SUNFRAIL tool for early detection of frailty, and a SUNFRAIL human resources tool for training of health professionals.

Ms Elisabetta Gualmini, Minister of Welfare Policies in Region Emilia-Romagna, opened the SUNFRAIL Final conference by addressing the demographic change challenge and the importance of early detection of frailty. In the session of “Initiatives to address frailty and multimorbidity” existing networks and actions to address frailty was presented to participants, such as the network of Italian regions Pro.M.I.S (PROgramma Mattone Internazionale Salute) and the AdvantAGE JA. Ms Mirca Barbolini, Coordinator of the SUNFRAIL Project from the Regional Agency for Health and Social Care in the Emilia-Romagna Region, presented the project results and outcomes by addressing the elements of success regarding the SUNFRAIL tool; 1) Understandable, 2) Easy to use by professionals, and community actors, 3) Empowering beneficiaries 4) Connecting services (health, social, community care), 5) Multidisciplinary approach to frailty.

Final recommendations regarding opportunities and replicability of the SUNFRAIL projects outputs were drafted by EUREGHA Chair Nick Batey during the conference as follows:

·Reinforce the message to policy makers across Europe that frailty is a reversible condition, and needs to be addressed through its main dimensions and early identification of risk factors, to orient proactive and preventive strategies. (European, national, regional and local health authorities)

·Move beyond the hospital setting that frailty alerts can be identified especially in community and primary care settings, targeting a population that may be unknown by services. (National, regional and local health authorities)

·To address frailty in a sustainable way requires broad interdisciplinary approaches and integrated strategies connecting existent health, social and community services. This should be embedded in funding approval projects (National, regional and local health authorities)

·Adopt a more holistic consideration of we mean by frailty e.g. bio/psycho/social aspects

·Don’t underestimate the challenge of implementation. Use the evidence to create a compelling local story and use existing structures to drive adoption where possible (local authorities)

·Addressing reversible frailty is an issue relevant to an increasing proportion of European population. It will be greater added value in addressing this at EU level.

Please find more information about the SUNFRAIL Project on the website.

SUNFRAIL (Reference Sites Network for Prevention and Care of Frailty and Chronic Condition in community dwelling persons of EU Countries) is a European projectwith a duration of 30 months, which started in May 2015. The project received funding from the EU Third Health Programme 2014-2020 and gathered 11 partners from 6 EU Member States.

On the 24th of January, EUREGHA attended a meeting with the MEP Interest group on patients rights & cross-border healthcare in the European Parliament, hosted by MEP Sofia Ribeiro.

The topic for the meeting were “Making visible the invisible on headache pain: Sharing successful experiences across Europe”. The objective for the meeting was to share best practices in the field of headache pain in Europe, raise awareness among stakeholders and the EU institutions about the severe conditions of chronic pain and promote pain related calls for proposals in the framework of the FP9 programme for further research.

The MEP Interest Group on patients’ rights & cross-border healthcare is an informal interest group in the for Members of the European Parliament with a specific interest in patient’s rights & cross-border healthcare. The aim of the interest group is to promote the citizens’ perspective in health issues among members of the European Parliament and create a platform where this perspective can be further raised and discussed by bringing together networks, organisations and members of the European Parliament.

Conclusion from the meeting: "Move from the symptom-based approach to the patient centered approach in all care services"

Please contact the Secretariat for more information about the meeting ouputs.

Sharing best practices in the field of headache pain in Europe, raise awareness among stakeholders and the EU institutions about the severe conditions of chronic pain and promote pain related calls for proposals in the framework of the FP9 programme for further research.

The MEP Interest Group on patients’ rights & cross-border healthcare is an informal interest group in the for Members of the European Parliament with a specific interest in patient’s rights & cross-border healthcare. The aim of the interest group is to promote the citizens’ perspective in health issues among members of the European Parliament and create a platform where this perspective can be further raised and discussed by bringing together networks, organisations and members of the European Parliament.

The Interest Group is organized by the Active Citizenship Network which work as the secretariat of the group. Co-chairs of the MEP Interest Group are MEP David Borrelli (IT) and Gianni Pittella (IT).

EUREGHA is currently looking for a Communications and Project Assistant to the Secretariat in Brussels from 1 March 2018. The communications and project assistant will work closely with the Operations Manager in the daily coordination of the network's activities, including EUREGHA's participation in European projects.

EUREGHA offers a dynamic working environment with the opportunity to gain broad experience in a wide range of health policy issues, communication, event management and with the possibility to develop a broad network at EU level.

On the 23rd of January 2018, the High-Level Task-Force on investing in Social Infrastructure in Europe invited stakeholders to the launch event of their report “Boosting investment in social infrastructure in Europe”. The event took place at the European Commission building Charlemagne in Brussels.

The High-Level Task-Force (HLTF) on investing in Social Infrastructure in Europe was initiated by the European Long-Term Investors Association (ELTI) and promoted by the European Commission, the European Investment Bank and the Council of Europe Development Bank. The aim of the HLTF was to raise political awareness to the important role of social infrastructure and related services to enhance public and private investments in this sector. The HLTF included two working groups; 1) Baseline evidence on social infrastructure 2) Financing social infrastructure. The report to the Commission “Boosting investment in social infrastructure in Europe” was the final output from the HLTF, which contains facts, figures and based on the findings, the report also formulates concrete recommendations and conclusions to enhance financial tools and future schemes in the social sector.

“Building social and emotional skills to BOOST mental health resilience in children and young people in Europe”

In January 2018, EUREGHA started working on a new project, BOOST “Building social and emotional skills to BOOST mental health resilience in children and young people in Europe”, which will run over 48 months and gathers 6 partners from 4 countries in the consortium. The project will receive funding under the Horizon 2020 programme.As a partner and leader of the work package on communication and dissemination, EUREGHA will attend the kick-off meeting of the BOOST project on 18-19 January in Brussels. During the kick-off meeting the partners will convene to present the 7 work packages included in the project and prepare up-coming activities. EUREGHA will be represented by treasurer Raymond Stijns (Limburg, NL), Operations Manager Valentina Polylas and Communications and project assistant Paula Holst.

BOOST project is one of the main results of the EUREGHA Policy Cycle first semester of 2017, focusing on Mental Health. The BOOST project aims at building social and emotional skills to BOOST mental health resilience in children and young people in Europe.

This will be achieved through the development of a new approach to integrate social and emotional learning (SEL) in teachers' pedagogical skills and classroom interaction, and by the design of a tool for organizational development to facilitate implementation and uptake of the approach in classrooms, schools and among school owners. This holistic combination of teacher's empowerment and organizational development will go beyond the current models for social and emotional learning (SEL), and will be referred to as the “BOOST approach”

The target population of the BOOST approach are primary school children, and the end users are schools and teachers who will use the tools developed in the project. To ensure the relevance of the BOOST approach in a wide range of European contexts, the approach will be developed, implemented and tested in three different European settings in Poland, Spain and Norway.

We are also delighted to announce that 3 EUREGHA member regions (Catalonia, Limburg and Skåne region) are a part of the Advisory Board of the project. Moreover, EUREGHA members will benefit of the project progress and results through the dissemination activities organized by the Secretariat. This will enable members to access an innovative approach in the field of mental health prevention in the young.